Review: Irish literary superstar Sally Rooney (’Normal People’) is back with ‘Intermezzo’

It’s maybe the summer’s most sought-after galley: Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo,” her fourth novel, has a lot of hype to live up to.

The Irish writer — known for exploring interpersonal relationships and Irish class and political structures in “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends” — takes on a tale of two brothers, Ivan and Peter, as they navigate their father’s recent death and their own fraught personal lives. The novel alternates between their points of view.

Rooney adopts a more stream-of-consciousness style in her Peter chapters, which reflects his fast-paced, sometimes self-obsessed and neurotic tendencies. He’s been seeing a much younger woman, and throughout the novel it’s implied she is some sort of online sex worker (like an OnlyFans model). Peter spends much of his chapters longing for Sylvia, with whom his long-term relationship ended, in part because she had been in a traumatic car accident and had chronic pain, including during sex.

Rooney’s exploration of this dynamic poses against each other the forces of love and sex, and where they intertwine is fascinating and delicate. Peter’s turmoil comes from loving a woman who fascinates him and being involved with a different woman who does not fulfill him emotionally or spiritually, but with whom he has a deep sexual connection. Peter’s views on sex throughout the novel shift from what’s written as a primal urge to a more conflicted, nuanced desire to be known and held, along with sex.

The chapters exploring Ivan are more compelling, less chaotic and scatterbrained, more stoic. Ivan is a 22-year-old semi-professional chess player and it honestly would have benefited the novel to include more chess references and metaphors, as it’s such a rich and fascinating subculture.

Ivan is a very logical character. He finds himself at an exhibition match in a small town where he is immediately attracted to Margaret, who he later finds out is 14 years his senior. She is reluctant to sleep with Ivan, but finds herself drawn to him.

Ivan and Margaret’s relationship is a wonderful microcosm of two people who instantly “get” each other. Their dialogue and banter is smooth and natural. The chapters exploring their relationship illustrate people at odds with a love that society deems unacceptable, but who really feel drawn to each other in a possibly once-in-a-lifetime way. Much of the novel revolves around that question: Is love worth deeming a priority even when it’s difficult?

For a fairly long novel (448 pages), Rooney writes something that feels like it can be consumed in one sitting, but the longer the reader thinks, the more there is to chew on and dissect. The sheer amount of human relationships and dynamics, like in all of her previous novels, gives a wide range of conversations and thoughtful dialogues. Readers will want to read it again and again to catch every sly nuance.

Intermezzo

By: Sally Rooney.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 448 pages, $29.